Trump claims he created ‘unthinkable’ amount of jobs despite worst year for job creation since 2011

The president is ignoring facts again.

At the Congressional Republican Retreat in West Virginia Thursday, President Trump bragged about the number of jobs he had created since his election in November 2016.

“Since the election, we have created 2.4 million jobs — that’s unthinkable,” he said.

The comment mirrored Trump’s remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week.

“After years stagnation the nights is once again experiencing strong economic growth. The stock market is smashing one record after another, and has added more than $7 trillion in new wealth since my election,” Trump said then. “Since my election we’ve created 2.4 million jobs and that number is going up very, very substantially […] The world is witnessing the resurgence of a strong and prosperous America.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 2.06 million jobs were created since Trump took office. That makes it the worst year for job creation since 2011, when the economy was recovering from the Great Recession under President George W. Bush.

The anemic job numbers are an indicator that the recent GOP tax bill and Trump’s decision to gut regulations haven’t created as many jobs as he anticipated. The tax bill, which Trump signed in December, slashed the corporate tax rate to 21 percent, something which Republicans claim will benefit workers and increase hiring.

Additionally, Trump’s decision to tout the 2.4 million figure ignores the fact that he is taking credit for the final two months of the Obama presidency — an economy Trump had no hand in creating.

Trump spent the remainder of Thursday’s speech praising the Republican Party for its “legislative successes.” The president specifically singled out Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for his work passing the tax bill and his dedication to the White House. In one particularly unusual moment, Trump claimed that Hatch had told him he was a better president than both Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

“He said once, I am the single greatest president in his lifetime. He’s young, so that’s not saying much, but he also said I was the greatest president in history of our country,” Trump claimed proudly. “I said, does that include Lincoln? He said, ‘yes.’ I love this guy.”